


Until We Meet Again, All That Remains is Love

by GrandDukeForever



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, M/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-07
Updated: 2013-10-07
Packaged: 2017-12-28 16:43:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/994191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrandDukeForever/pseuds/GrandDukeForever
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the Pacific Rim kink meme prompt, which reads: "Just as it says above; I want angst and tears and no shortage of desperation and pleas -- 'don'tgopleaseIneedyoustayIloveyou!'<br/> <br/>When the kaiju breached their conn-pod and tore through Gipsy's arm, the damage sustained to Gipsy is mirrored upon Raleigh. Raleigh dies in Yancy's arms after the fight with Knifehead.</p><p>I would also like to see Yancy's life after Raleigh, and maybe, once the events of the movie are over, how Yancy plans to reunite with him."<br/> </p><p>This is probably not exactly what the OP had in mind, but it's what I came up with...hopefully it still satisfies!</p><p>Original prompt can be found here: http://pacificrimkink.livejournal.com/1613.html?thread=2846029#t2846029</p>
            </blockquote>





	Until We Meet Again, All That Remains is Love

**Author's Note:**

> I rarely write in first person, but I felt like it worked for this prompt. Funny though, it went a completely different direction than I meant to take it, which was a totally weird experience because even though my mind was thinking one thing, my fingers were typing out something else. Oh well. I suppose it was meant to be this way. Hope you all like it, at least!
> 
> If you are OP and would like me to gift this work to you, let me know. I'll be more than happy to!

Some days I wake up from the dream.  Nightmare.  A _memory_.  

Your screams from that night still haunt me.  I should have died.  With you.  We should have gone together.  That’s the way it was supposed to go.

Not a day goes by where I don’t think of you.  I miss you.  

There are days where I manage to actually get some rest.  When I wake up though, without fail, my mind becomes filled with you.

Funny, we took so many pictures in our later years—pictures that completely filled up the wall of our room at the Shatterdome in Anchorage—and yet, a majority of them are just of places we’ve visited.  There’s hardly any of us.  

I guess we hadn’t seen the need.  That was stupid of us.  I need you now.  

You’re gone.

The only consolation I have is that I remember you.  All of you.

You know, the human brain is an amazing thing.  Mine has a mental scrapbook of every single moment I’ve spent with you.  Some days I close my eyes and lean back, let myself flip through the memories as if they’re tangible photographs in my hands.

 _The day our parents brought you home from the hospital._  I don’t remember too much from that day; I was only three.  All I knew then was one minute I didn’t have a brother and in the next, there you were, adorable as hell and screaming at the top of your lungs like there was no tomorrow.  I think I clapped my hands over my ears.  I’m pretty sure they could hear you all the way in Europe.

 _Elementary school._  Those were probably some of the best years.  You followed me everywhere.  Come to think of it, that’s a habit you never really grew out of, huh?  Not that I ever minded.  You were such a cute kid.  Grew up to be quite a looker, too.  You had a smile that burned brighter than a thousand suns.  Back then when you laughed, it was this high-pitched squeak that always sent a pleasant shiver down my spine and made my feet feel as if they were sticking to the floor.  I think I fell in love with you all the more then, even though it’d be years before I’d realize that’s what that feeling was.  

 _That time you came home with a split lip._  God...when was that?  I think that was middle school for you.  I think you were twelve then, which means I was a sophomore in high school.  You came home with a black eye and dried blood on your face and _damn_ I was _so pissed_.  At the same time, I was proud, because you had gotten in your first fist fight and you told me that you had stood your ground.  In fact, turned out you did a number on the kid that decided it was such a grand idea to push you around, and you had the warning letter and follow-up teacher’s conference to prove it.  Our parents weren’t so thrilled about that, and you have no idea about the earful I got from them later on, when you were tucked away in bed.  Well, maybe you do now.  I’m sure you’ve met up with Mom by now, haven’t you?  Bet she’s told you all about it.  Before that incident, I was always the one coming home from school with those pink warning slips.  Our folks were worried you were going to follow me down the delinquent path.  They didn’t understand.  We were born fighters; it was always in our blood.  Where we got that fighting spirit from?  Beats me.  I sure don’t think it came from them.  It's what made us Drift compatible; what made us great Jaeger pilots. It's what fucking ruined us.

 _Our first big fight._ You were sixteen then.  It was a year after the very first Kaiju emerged from the breach.  I was preparing to go and join the PPDC.  You were so angry with me.  You wanted to go too, and you didn’t understand why I couldn’t just wait another two years until you turned eighteen so that you could enlist too.  I tried to get you to see the value of staying at home.  I wanted you alive.  I wanted you safe.  You didn’t want to listen to me.  You should have listened to me.  I eventually gave in.  I should have fought harder to make you stay.   _God_...not a day goes by where I don’t regret that.  I should have learned to say no to you every once in a while.  You’d still be alive today.  Forget that you were always stubborn as hell, even more so than me.  I knew you, kid.  Had I been firm enough, you would have conceded.  Sure, our relationship probably would have become strained at that point, and we certainly wouldn’t have ever gotten as close as we did, but knowing what I do now...if I could only go back in time and do that day all over again...you would have hated me, but it would have been worth it.  

 _Our first kiss, in the ocean._ You had just turned eighteen a few months before, and that summer following your birthday we decided to celebrate our graduation from the Jaeger Academy by taking a brief trip to the beaches of Southern California, when we were given the standard one week between commencement and advancing to the Shatterdome as Rangers.  Honestly, I don’t even know how it happened.  This is going to sound extremely cliché, but it really did happen all so fast.  In fact, when I think about it, that’s how everything felt for me when it came to you.  You were always just this cannonball of energy I never seemed to know what to do with on impact.

 _Your eyes, that time._  I think that’s when I finally gave what I felt for you a word.  I think that’s also when I realized that you felt the same way about me.  You were so serious.  I was actually kind of scared.  We were brothers.  That’s not something we should have been feeling, but we stepped into the water, or rather, you ran in after saying some teasing words and I chased after you.  No one knew us there, so it was okay.  Besides, you wanted it as much as I did.  At least, that’s what I kept telling myself.  I admit it, I was trying to rationalize the situation.  I didn’t want to feel as if I were the one leading you astray.  The truth is, I probably did.  I didn’t stop you when you wrapped your arms and legs around me.  You let me roam my hands around your body and moaned into my mouth when our lips met.  I could feel your heat pressed against my stomach.  You wanted me so bad.  I wanted you even more.

 _Later that evening, when we made love._  You were beautiful.  God, you were _so beautiful_.  I came before you could even have a taste—and _damn_ that was _so_ _fucking embarrassing_.  You were such a good sport about it though.  Hell, neither of us had ever done something like that before, and you were so patient with me, so reassuring.  You started playing with yourself and made me rock hard again before I knew it, and then with your permission I went in and _fuck_...I became just so lost in you.  I had to have you, again and again.  You couldn’t seem to get enough of me either.  What we had back then was perfect.  Not saying what we had later wasn’t, but that was at the end, and I really just want to go back to the beginning.  Back to when things were good.  Back to when you were always with me.  

These days, all I can do is close my eyes and strain to hear the sound of your voice in the Drift and try not to cry when it never comes.  I used to hear it, but at some point it faded away.  Maybe it was never there in the first place, or maybe those theories about being able to Ghost-Drift after a pilot’s been killed are all wrong.  Then again, maybe your silence is just your way of telling me I need to keep my head up and move on.  I try not to think about that last one too much.

I open my eyes and see a world that I don’t really feel myself to be a part of.  Time stopped for me when Knifehead took you out in that fight.  I should have died with you that day.  I can’t even begin to tell you what the emptiness in my head feels like; what the pain in my head and my heart felt like, as you were being wrenched mercilessly away from me.  I don’t know why that bastard didn’t take us both out.  I don’t know why at the last minute, when it seemed like it was going to take me out of that cockpit, that it suddenly backed away from us, as if it had just changed its mind.  I’ll never understand those creatures.  We won the war a year ago today, after countless casualties.  The Kaiju threat has been completely eliminated, and good fucking riddance.  

It doesn’t make things right though, I know.  None of it brings you back.

I close my eyes again and I hear you scream.  I’ve had doctors ask me why I torture myself like this, but they don’t see things the way I do.  This isn’t martyrdom or self-inflicted pain—this is penance.  An atonement for all my sins.

 _For agreeing with you._  I never should have let you come with me to the Shatterdome.  God fucking _damn it_.  I should have put you in your place.  I should have forced you to stay home.  Then you wouldn’t have been my co-pilot for Gipsy Danger.  You wouldn’t have convinced me to go after that boat, and that Kaiju wouldn’t have fucking torn your arm off like he was just plucking a helpless daisy from the ground.  

I wouldn’t have watched you bleed to death.  You wouldn’t have died screaming, writhing in agony in my arms, which eventually became drenched in your blood.

I wouldn’t have had to kill that Kaiju alone.  Believe me though, I gave that motherfucker every bit of what it deserved.  I only wish I could bring it back to life, just so I could kill it over and over again, like how Zeus had Prometheus chained to a boulder and had birds pluck at his regenerating liver, day after day.

“ _You really shouldn’t think like that, Yance.”_

That’s what you’d probably say to me right now.  I know, kid, but I do anyway.  

Sometimes I try to reconstruct your image in my mind.  It’s because we’re so far apart now, and I miss you.  If I try hard enough, I can feel the silkiness of your golden hair in my fingers; your fresh scent, lingering in my nose, and the sweet taste of your tongue.  

Then I add in the soundtrack.  Your laughter.  Your cheeky little comments spoken in that deep, seductive voice of yours.  The moans that used to escape your lips when we’d roll around in bed together.  The pleasurable little gasps you’d let out whenever I hit the right spot and you’d arch your back in a way that always made me wonder where in the hell you learned to be so fucking sexy.

I remember the way your blue eyes used to sparkle whenever they looked at me.  I loved the way your face would flush so easily when you were embarrassed, especially in the bedroom.   _God_...it was arousing as hell, how every time you seemed to act like it was the first time we’d ever done any of it.  The more I think about it though, I think you did that on purpose.  You probably knew that shit turned me on.  Fuck, what the hell am I talking about?  We _Drifted_ together.   _Of course_ you had to have known.  

Not that any of that matters now.  

You know, I’ve never really been much for sweets, but I still keep a whole bunch of your favorite hard candies in my pocket.  Do you remember?  There were times when you were little where you’d act like such a crybaby, and giving you a few of these was the only way I could figure out how to get you to cheer up and stop crying, remind you to once again be the happy boy you always were.  Every once in a while, when things get rough, I’ll pop one into my mouth and think of you.

I’ll admit it; I’ve thought of killing myself a few times, especially after the war with the Kaiju was over.  Didn’t really seem like anything was worth living for, but I know you wouldn’t have forgiven me if I tried to be with you too soon.  I know, because I’d feel the same way if this situation were in reverse.

So the first time, right after you had died, I went into construction.  I know, totally not my style, but is it really any surprise that I went that route?  It reminded me of you.  Even as a kid, you were always so fascinated by power tools and you were constantly messing around in Dad’s shed.  I joined a crew that was building a wall, a blockade against the Kaiju threats.  I sure didn’t think it was going to work—and it didn’t, the bastards broke cleanly through—but I did it because I figured that’s probably what you would have done in my place.

That’s also why, when the marshal came by to see me and asked me if I would be willing to pilot Gipsy Danger once more, I said I would.  It wasn’t an easy thing to agree to, don’t get me wrong there, but again I did it because I know that’s what you would have done eventually.  Maybe you would have put up more of a fight, but you always did have more of a temper.

After the war with the Kaiju ended, things were shaky for a bit.  It took a few weeks for me to get back into some sort of rhythm.  I went back into construction, and started to help rebuild houses.  I wake up every morning and drink a cup of coffee, the stuff that you hate, but I need it because I was never a morning person like you were.  I sit at the kitchen table, eat my breakfast, read the day’s newspaper, and then I’ll go hit the shower and change before heading to work.  I’ll work a full day, sometimes overtime, and then I’m back home again.  I’ll have my dinner, clean up, and go to bed.  If I’m lucky, the next time I open my eyes it’ll be because of the sound of my alarm, telling me to wake up and get ready for work.  Most of the time though, I get up in the middle of the night, sometimes screaming, sometimes reaching for something that isn’t really there.

You know, I never knew how many times a heart could break until I lost you.  I don’t even try to put mine back together anymore.  It doesn’t know anything other than how to shatter into little pieces, over and over again.

I’ve been doing my best to keep myself going though, because I know that’s what you want me to do.  It’s what I would’ve wanted for you too, if this situation were turned the other way around.

Still, I wait for the day where you’ll come for me.  When you think I’ve suffered for long enough.  I look forward to the day when I’ll be able to see you again; when we can finally run back into each other’s arms. Until then, I’ll keep on doing my best; living each day as if it were the most precious gift given to me by you.  That’s the only thing that really keeps me going anymore, to tell you the truth.

One day though, maybe I’ll finally get this right.  Maybe one day I’ll get up and it won’t be because of a nightmare, or a memory, or because I just can’t stop fucking missing you.  I’ll get up and no longer be counting the days.  I’ll start living and actually feel alive.  I’ll go about my day without dwelling on all the regrets and all the bad times.  Instead, my mind will be filled with all the sweet memories of you.  

Maybe one day I’ll actually remember what it feels like to smile.  You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Rals?  Yeah, I bet you would.  

I’ll admit, I am afraid of getting better though.  I’m scared to let myself feel good again without you.  Wouldn’t be right.  If I do though one day, I hope you’ll forgive me.  I hope you won’t think I’ve forgotten about you, because I promise I’ll never stop reminding myself just how much...

I love you, Raleigh.  I always will.


End file.
